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2. Development and Expansion, 1783–1819
- University of Ottawa Press
- Chapter
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Chapter Two DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION, 1783-1819 "The men of war usually anchor off the naval yard, which a stranger may easily distinguish by the masting sheers."1 However demoralized by the loss of the heart of its North American empire in 1783, the British government resolved to protect what remained of its possessions. For Nova Scotia, divided in 1784 into three colonies when Cape Breton and New Brunswickbecame separate jurisdictions , the British navy became the effective guarantor of its defence. Lingering hopes harboured by some Nova Scotians of forming a state within the remarkable political experiment underway in the United States were thereby blasted by the presence of the Royal Navy, the ultimate instrument of British policy.The modesty of its naval base in Halifax harbour, frequently neglected and often inadequately manned for the variety of tasks required of it, effectively symbolized the North American squadron's diminished importance for a quarter-century after 1783. This relative decline in the strategic importance of Nova Scotia was not reflected in the construction undertaken in the naval yard after 1783. The navy acquired much more land round Halifax harbour and many new buildings were erected. This expansion was undertaken at the same time as the annual struggle to maintain existing wharfs, breastworks, walls, and buildings preoccupied the yard when the workforce was not actually carrying out its principal responsibility: refitting and supplying warships based there. The more important land acquisitions lay at the north end of the yard, both between the yard walls and those of the new hospital, as 28 Part One: Naval Yard Complex well as along the harbour shore and beyond the hospital complex, encompassing property overlooking the hospital from the height of land. In June 1785, twenty acres lying to the south of the grounds of the new naval hospital were added.2 Almost thirty years later in 1814, for an eight-acre lot was deeded H£l,000 by Andrew Bauer, butcher, on this rising ground overlooking the hospital. It became the site of the commander-in-chief's mansion. In 1787 Commissioner Duncan was informed that the "stream of water and the land through which it runs into the harbour," at the north end of the yard had never been granted to the navy. "As the water which at present supplies the yard and shipping is in no way sufficient for a fleet, I know of no place so fit for that purpose as the spot you now ask my opinion about."3 Duncan thereupon asked Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth to reserve the tract for the crown. One piece of land along the beach, privately owned, separated the yard from the naval hospital. When Henry Duncan was named commissioner in 1783, he had been given directions "to purchase the ground between the yard and hospital, if he approved of the plan to build a wharf at the northwest end of the yard, which had been proposed for the purpose of having a ship's bottom out to the southward, and that the yard artificers might be able to work better upon her in winter." As he found the plot "of little or no worth, but a distillery standing upon it of no service to government, and the proprietors supposing it was wanted for the king's use, placed a high value upon it," he made no offer for it.4 In September 1790 some five and a half acres were added to the north end of the yard, for which the Navy Board paid £500 to the heirs of Joshua Mauger.5 Finally in 1816, Commissioner Philip Wodehouse and Rear Admiral Edward Griffith requested the grant of a lot to the north of the yard as a potential site for an expanded mastpond.6 Two small additions were also made at the south end of the yard. There the town's growth, stimulated by the demands ofwar from 1793, brought Halifax urban development inexorably closer. In 1786 a water lot near the mastpond was reserved for the navy where masting timbers could be stored.7 In 1815, when Commissioner Wodehouse learned that a lot adjoining the south boundary of the yard was to be escheated, he applied to the lieutenant governor on behalf of the crown for the grant. Its value to Wodehouse was as a firebreak, "as the great increase in building here, which is entirely of wood" had brought the town uncomfortably close to the yard.8 It might also serve as a...